A roundup of selected quotes from the media for the premiere ofThe Angels Take Manhattanlast night - links to the full review can be found via the author's name. You can also read our own reviewhere.Please note that as these are reviews, spoilers may be present within the text!

Radio Times

That was so damned good. I laughed. I cried. I was on the edge of my seat. I jumped out of my skin. That to me is perfect entertainment. Every piece of my emotional machinery was fully engaged. I'm now going to have to have a lie down and take a valium because I don't think I can actually get through the rest of the day!(Katy Manning)

Guardian

Amy and Rory left the only way they really could. The Weeping Angels felt like they were created for this very scene: Amy and Rory zapped back in time to live out their long, happy lives without the Doctor. Since the Tardis crashlanded into her back garden, Amy's story had been one about growing up. At the start, she chose a life of adventure with her Raggedy Man over the prospect of normality with Rory. But now, faced with that decision again, there was no contest.This was a fitting end to a golden era, and bravo to Steven Moffat for telling such an involving, emotional story with such style. That last scene, as the Doctor darted through the streets of New York – grabbing at the final page as it flapped in the wind, speeding toward the ending he'd refused to accept was coming! Here ended Doctor Who's ultimate fairytale in the way it had begun – in the pages of a storybook.(Dan Martin)

Telegraph

The Angels Take Manhattan brought this mini-run of the series to a close with easily the best episode of the five: a powerful, taut, compelling, filmic, emotionally punchy affair which re-established the Angels as one of the standout monsters of the series and gave Amy Pond a fine send off.(Gavin Fuller)

Independent

The Angels take Manhattan was a wonderful swansong to the duo, it drew on the film noir genre and combined it with fantasy and horror. Added to this, the cinematography was superb and everything looked very stylish. The Weeping Angels haven’t been this scary since Blink and there was a real sense of danger. On top of this the introduction of the baby cherubim Angels was a devilish little touch that added to the fear factor, not to mention the Statue of Liberty becoming a gigantic Angel. The only flaw was the rule that time cannot be changed if one knows what is going to happen. After watching the last series though it is probably best not to question the timey wimey side of things and just accept it and enjoy the adventure.What a momentous end to this half of the series, apart from the Christmas special there is no more Doctor Who in 2012. The cyclical ending to this episode takes viewers right back to the start, back to a young Amelia Pond with a suitcase in her back garden waiting for her raggedy man. This image alone inspires a compelling urge to return to The Eleventh Hour and re-live the Ponds’ adventures from the beginning.(Neela Debnath)

The Mirror

It was shocks and tension all the way, and anyone who wasn't riveted probably wasn't paying attention. Doctor Who now demands attention, and it's simultaneously a wonderful and a rather sorry thing that one of the most challenging dramas on TV at the moment is ostensibly aimed at kids. But heck, why let them have all the fun?In The Angels Take Manhattan, it's the heroines who often take the lead, dramatically and emotionally, with River's anger that the Doctor would waste his regeneration energy on her, and Amy's truly heartbreaking decision that mutual suicide is preferable to a life without the man she so completely and utterly loves. Beautiful yet terrible, believable without ever being mawkish, it was a true statement of love between two characters who - let's face it - we've all come to love just a bit over the last two and a half years of Who.(Jon Cooper)

SFX

The episode also had a great noir feel, which director Nick Hurran captured perfectly. Even a simple scene such as River and Rory being driven around 1930s New York in the back of a car looked stunning. Hurran also excelled in the creepy scenes; Rory being menaced by the baby angels in the basement was strong stuff, with some excellent sound design (that freaky giggling).Thank God the departure of Amy and Rory was delivered with such gutwrenching emotion, because the dramatic clout of their bittersweet exit from the show distracted you from the fact that this was a bit of a multi-“Huh?!” episode. On one level it’s a glorious, daring, gutsy, high-concept and hugely entertaining slice of Who, with individual moments of the show at its best: creepy, funny and visually arresting. On another level, it’s downright baffling…(Dave Golder)

Digital Spy

Wrapping up a three-year character arc and writing out two much-loved actors at the same time is no easy task, and for the most part Steven Moffat pulls it off with style. And beyond script and performance, 'Angels' also boasts superb production design, another in a long series of enthralling Murray Gold musical scores and dynamic direction from Nick Hurran, who also handled the excellent 'Asylum of the Daleks'.Doctor Who's final episode 'til the festive season is easily the equal of that hugely impressive opener. Is it perfect? Perhaps not - but it did leave us feeling both moved and almost entirely satisfied.(Morgan Jeffery)

Den of Geek

Steven Moffat’s script gave both Gillan and Arthur Darvill an awful lot of work to do. Confronted with their potential separation, there was humour, action and emotion, and the performances from Gillan and Darvill were both up to the job. We’ve said before that we’re particularly going to miss Arthur Darvill. His performance as Rory has evolved and impressed more and more as the episodes have rolled on.Matt Smith, though, was also in tip top form, and the foreboding warning that his Doctor should never travel alone came through loud and clear here. It felt like quite a few things were being established for him to consider in the next run of episodes, and it'll be interesting to see how those threads develop. For now, not for the first time nor the last, The Doctor was faced with losing dear friends and companions (and just how special Amy was to him was explored in The Power Of Three), and Smith sold the heartbreak and loneliness of this tremendously well.(Simon Brew)

Entertainment Weekly

The departure of the Ponds, and the manner in which they left, is bound to provoke mixed feelings. Many fans will obviously feel bereft while some may believe Moffat has played the “Someone’s-going-to-die!” card once too often, even if he was once again technically correct in doing so. Although I am certainly not among them, there are a few Who followers who have never warmed to Gillan’s spiky sidekick and will be looking forward to an Amy-free TARDIS. But there is no doubt that, as companions, the Ponds played a bigger-than-most role in the life of the Time Lord — or this particular incarnation of it anyway. While the convoluted familial interweaving of Amy, Rory, the Doctor, and River Song may have caused head scratching at times, they were a family — the first, really, to inhabit that famous blue box — and Gillan and Darvill’s exit leaves a sizable hole even in a structure which is, yes, much bigger on the inside. When your writer spoke to Grey’s Anatomy creator and Who fanatic Shonda Rhimes earlier this year, she suggested that, since Amy’s arrival, the show has essentially been told from her point of view. That’s a debatable point, albeit one that seemed to be reinforced this episode by the way Amy was allowed to have the last word when it came to the end of her relationship with the “Raggedy Man.” Regardless, Jenna-Louise Coleman, who will play the Doctor’s new assistant when the show returns with this year’s Christmas special, has big shoes to fill — and four of them.(Clark Collis)

TV.com

For me, this was an extremely touching episode that really highlighted the best parts of Amy's character—her feistiness, her sense of adventure, and her love for Rory. There were great performances all around, but I especially liked hers. I loved that she didn't struggle with her decision to choose Rory over the Doctor—she made her mind up and that was it. Her end wasn't a result of the Doctor's negligence, a quirk of time travel, or her weariness of leading a double life; her end came because she had to choose, and she chose her marriage.My only complaint about the episode, outside of a few nit-picky time-travel/storyline issues mentioned below, was that the plot was barely affected by the Doctor. He seemed powerless to fix the problems that came up, from River's arm to Rory escaping the Angels, but perhaps that was for the best. It was Amy's story, and it came to a satisfying close for me. Sometimes it's not about the complexities of endless time travel—sometimes it's just about a girl faced with two men she loves and a choice to make.(Emily V Gordon)

Zap2It

As an episode of "Doctor Who," "The Angels Take Manhattan" benefited from excellent on-location use of New York City and a clever film noir style that sprang from a book River Song was writing under the nom de plume Melody Malone. But that was just the window dressing. The main event of "The Angels Take Manhattan" was Amy and Rory's goodbye, which was pulled off with suspense, humor and maximum emotional impact.(Geoff Berkshire)

Assignment X

Although it’s nice to know Amy and Rory live a happy life together, even that revelation feels misjudged at the end by leaving it off camera. We only have Amy’s voice over to tell us rather than provide one single shot of the two of them reunited in the past and at long last freed from the Doctor’s meddling (which is definitely how it felt in the last several stories – remember when traveling with the Doctor was supposed to be exciting and make you into a better person?). Even in trying to provide some sort of conclusion to one of the series’ most convoluted stories, this episode manages to miss the little touches that would have made it better. For my part, I’d just like to move on now.(Arnold T Blumberg)

Huffington Post

I wish I had liked "Angels" more than I did, but there was a lot of throat-clearing before we got to the meat of the story: We met a couple of characters (the rich guy and the hard-boiled detective) who didn't matter in the end, and River simply took up too much space, plotwise and emotionally. She got in the way. And normally, I love film noir, but the big and operatic tone the director was clearly going for clashed with the mood of film noir, which is all about bittersweet cynicism. The scene in Central Park was fun, but it felt like it was from a different episode. "Angels" simply didn't cohere.Part of the reason the episode didn't fully work for me was because I dislike the kind of timey-wimey machinations on display here. It's just a personal dislike; I'm willing to concede that others may not share it (and yes, I get that this kind of thing is somewhat baked into the premise). The detective novel, the Angels, the apartment building, the clues -- I more or less understand how all that worked, but the episode featured yet another Moffat-style house-of-mirrors plot that buried the emotional beats in time math. Trying to figure out how it all worked and what it all meant stopped me from being able to fully bask in the Ponds' exit.(Maureen Ryan)

Unreality TV

Overall a well-produced episode with some fine performances, attention to period detail and excellent use of the terrifying weeping angels. It’s a shame then that all of this is somewhat eclipsed by the fact that this will always be seen as Amy and Rory’s last episode and in that respect I feel that more time should’ve been allocated to this exit. It seemed to me to be very sudden and after all the build-up I was thinking we would get something more spectacular than what we ultimately did. Instead this was a very low-key send-off with a couple of nice touches though I thought I’d feel a lot more emotional than I actually did. I will miss the Ponds as Amy and Rory had a great chemistry with The Doctor and will always be associated with this incarnation of the character so now we’ll have to wait till Christmas to see if the new assistant can successfully replace them.

Friday, 28 September 2012

A new Lupin III anime special, Lupin III: Tōhō Kenbunroku ~Another Page~ (Lupin III: Record of Observations of the East ~Another Page~) will air on NTV on November 2.

The 23rd Lupin III anime work will feature the new cast that debuted with the Lupin III: Chi no Kokuin Eien no Mermaid television special that aired last December and continued with the Lupin III: The Woman Called Fujiko Mine television anime that aired earlier this year.

The special will revolve around a long-lost page of Marco Polo's Record of Observations of the East travel journal (known in French as Livres des merveilles du monde and in English as Books of the Marvels of the World). Theo Argent, a professor who found this missing page, has been murdered, and Lupin is suspected as the killer.

As Lupin is being chased by the police, he receives unexpected help from Argent's granddaughter Lisa (voiced by Marina Inoue). Additional cast members include Romi Park, Yuka Terasaki, and Sora Tokui.
Hajime Kamegaki (Lupin III vs. Detective Conan) is directing the special. Hidaka Katsuro (Kaitō Royale, Natsu Yasumi no Koibito) is writing the script, and Yuji Ohno will handle the special's music.

AudioGo have released details on audio titles in their spoken word range due to be released in November.

The television soundtrack releases continue with the Fourth Doctor adventure Destiny of The Daleks with linking narration by Lalla Ward (Romana), who also recalls her time on Doctor Who in a special bonus interview.

Meanwhile, a new adventure for the Eleventh Doctor, Amy and Rory sees them encounter The Sleepers in The Dust in a story that is a sequel to last year's The Eye of the Jungle.

Destiny of The Daleks
Written by Terry Nation
Narrated by Lalla Ward
Released 4th November 2012 (CD) (pre-order)
Having returned to their home planet Skaro, the Daleks are excavating their former city – but for what?

The Doctor and Romana soon find themselves caught in the middle of a war between two different races.
This full-cast TV adventure from 1979 stars Tom Baker as the Doctor alongside Lalla Ward as Romana, who also provides specially recorded linking narration. In a bonus interview Lalla recalls her time on Doctor Who, whilst additional pdf files contain colour scans of the original episode camera scripts.

The Sleepers in The Dust
Written by Darren Jones
Read by Arthur Darvill
Released 1st November 2012 (CD) (pre-order)
On an apparently lifeless world, the Doctor and his friends battle against plague. Will they find the cause - and the cure?

This story features the return of the Nadurni, whom the Doctor first encountered in last year’s audio original The Eye of the Jungle.
Arthur Darvill – Rory in the TV series – reads this nail-biting original adventure.

BBC Books are to release a special book inspired by this weekend's episode, The Angels Take Manhattan; The Angel's Kiss is a 112-page novella written by Justin Richards, and is the first book in the range to be published that has been written from the perspective of one of the show's characters:
Melody Malone not only runs her own agency, she also happens to be the author of a successful series of novels, featuring one Melody Malone.

The book will only be available electronically, and is published on 4th October 2012, a few days after the episode's premiere.

The Angel's Kiss
A Melody Malone Mystery
By Melody Malone
On some days, New York is one of the most beautiful places on Earth.
This was one of the other days...
Melody Malone, owner and sole employee of the Angel Detective Agency, has an unexpected caller. It's movie star Rock Railton, and he thinks someone is out to kill him. When he mentions the 'kiss of the Angel', she takes the case.

Angels are Melody's business…
At the press party for Railton's latest movie, studio owner Max Kliener invites Melody to the film set of their next blockbuster. He's obviously spotted her potential, and Melody is flattered when Kliener asks her to become a star. But the cost of fame, she'll soon discover, is greater than anyone could possibly imagine.
Will Melody be able to escape Kliener's dastardly plan – before the Angels take Manhattan?

Moon Boots and Dinner Suits
Fantom Publishing are to reprint Jon Pertwee's first autobiography, Moon Boots and Dinner Suits. Originally published in 1984, publisher Dexter O'Neill said:
We are thrilled to bring this autobiography to a new generation.

The book has been out of print for over twenty-six years. We will retain all the original content, whilst adding new material including photographs and an introduction from Ingeborg Pertwee.

The autobiography is due to be published on 4th February 2013 in both paperback and hardback, with an audiobook to be announced shortly.
Jon Pertwee’s acting career began with a public performance at the age of four. He seems to have been expelled from most of the schools his actorwriter father Roland Pertwee sent him to and finally joined RADA in 1936.

From there too, he was asked to leave. Jon went into Rep and had a checkered career. In Brighton panic set in when he dressed as an old gardener in Love from a Stranger instead of as a young cleric in Candida.
In 1938 came Jon’s first radio role in the BBC’s Lillibulero, in which year he also appeared in his father’s play, To Kill a Cat, directed by Henry Kendall at the Aldwych Theatre.

When war came he joined the Navy, ramming Douglas Pier with an Isle of Man Stream Packet boat. He was blown up twice, once being put on a marble slab presumed dead, and spent many months stationed in the Scapa Flow.

He was the founder of the Service Players in the Isle of Man. He was commissioned in the RNVR and transferred to Naval Intelligence where he worked and became good friends with the future Prime Minister James Callaghan. Then Jon joined Naval Broadcasting. His radio series, The Navy Lark, ran for eighteen years and produced some truly vintage memories of radio.

Whether telling stories of a misspent youth, of his posterior’s first painful introduction to a fives bat or his exploits with the McKenzie sisters in the north of Scotland, Jon Pertwee's humour and natural wit never fail him. Moon Boots and Dinner Suits is a wry, funny and endearing portrait of the early years of a most innovative and well-loved actor.

Patrick Troughton - The Biography of the Second Doctor Who
Fantom are also to release an audio version of Patrick Troughton's Biography, to be read by the book's author, Michael Troughton. The unabridged reading is to be released on six discs in March 2013, with signed copies available on pre-order from the Fantom website.

Respected and loved, Patrick Troughton is probably best remembered as the second Doctor Who - a role in which he made television history. A prolific actor, he was also a complex and troubled man, constantly wrestling with two lives, one of which he was determined to keep secret.
Michael Troughton presents here an entertaining and personal account of his father’s professional and private life.

Meticulously researched, he explores Patrick’s childhood, his experiences at sea during World War II and the successful acting career which led to his historic casting as Doctor Who in 1966.

Patrick’s Doctor Who years are recalled in vivid detail, from his initial uncertainty about taking on the part through the legendary ‘monster years’, to his troubled final season and three subsequent returns to the role.
In this fascinating biography, Patrick’s extraordinary career and his multi-layered personal life are enhanced by the memories of family members, actors, friends and colleagues.

Michael peppers the biography with revealing extracts from Patrick’s own diaries, and presents an honest, affectionate and complete account of Patrick Troughton the actor, and Patrick Troughton the man.

Thursday, 27 September 2012

Manga creator Yasunobu Yamauchi released the final chapter of the Daily Lives of High School Boys (Danshi Kōkōsei no Nichijō ) series on Square Enix's Gangan Online website on Thursday. There was no previous sign that the mang

a would end this week. Square Enix will publish the manga's seventh volume this December.
The gag comedy manga follows the humorous yet "realistic" everyday life of Tadakuni, Hidenori, Yoshitake, and other students at a boys' high school.

In the final chapter, the three main characters have a light and comedic talk about the masked hero that saved Hidenori from bullies when he was a child. The ending of the chapter reveals the truth behind the hero.

The manga launched in Gangan Online in 2009 and inspired a television anime earlier this year. NIS America licensed the anime for a North American release.

The website Anime on Demand has tweeted that it will simulcast the anime television series K. This will be the first of six new simulcast announcements, with the next five to be made over the following days at the rate of one per day.

Recently, Anime on Demand has also tweeted that there will be "big changes" coming on the site this season, but that customers should "please hold off re-subscribing until you hear the news though - there's more to discuss than just simulcasts."

A full official post detailing the changes this season will come soon, but "the key word this season is transition."
Anime on Demand has images from K on its facebook page.

Shingo Suzuki (Mardock Scramble) will be the director and character designer of the series, and the GoRA group will handle the series composition. Makoto Furuta (Seitokai Yakuindomo) will be the chief animation director, and Ringo Kishimoto (Asa Made Jugyou Chu!) will be the animation producer. As a "GoRA Project" group member, producer Gou Nakanishi (Fafner, Asura Cryin', Negima!) is also participating in the project.

Wednesday, 26 September 2012

It has been announced that Power Rangers SPD will re-air on Tokyo MX starting October 6th from 7PM. The show features the original Tokusou Sentai Dekaranger cast dubbing their SPD counterparts.

Adapted from Tokusou Sentai Dekaranger, the dubbed Power Ranger SPD will feature to voices of the former Dekaranger team on their SPD counterparts: Ryuji Sainei, Tsuyoshi Hayashi Yousuke Ito, Ayumi Kinoshita, Mika Kikuchi, Tomokazu Yoshida and Tetsu Inada.
Instead of Mako Ishino voicing her Power Rangers counterpart, Rie Tanaka (Gundam SEED) will be the one voicing Doctor Katherine "Kat" Manx while Ishino is doing the show's opening narration.

The Japanese dubbed Power Rangers SPD previously aired in TOEI Channel. They also released a DVD box set: HERO CLUB POWER RANGERS S.P.D. last August 5th, 2011.

Saban Brands confirmed on Tuesday that it has acquired the Digimon anime franchise outside of Asia. Saban noted that it will work with MarVista Entertainment to distribute the series outside of Asia.

Toei Animation will handle licensing and distribution of the franchise in Asia.
Saban "will debut the newest season, Digimon Fusion," to potential broadcasters and distributors at the MIPCOM event in Cannes, France on October 8-11. Digimon Xros Wars premiered in Japan in 2010, and its follow-up Digimon Xros Wars:

Toki o Kakeru Shōnen Hunter-tachi premiered last October. Neither of these television series have aired in North America yet, but Crunchyroll streamed the first series and simulcast the second series as it aired in Japan.

Saban Entertainment's Fox Family Worldwide distributed the first Digimon Adventure anime series in North America in 1999, just months after its debut in Japan.
New Video Group is slated to release the complete first season of Digimon Adventure on DVD on October 9. Twentieth Century Fox and Buena Vista Home Entertainment both previously released part of the series on DVD in 2000 and 2002, respectively.

Anime film director Mamoru Hosoda (The Girl Who Leapt Through Time, Summer Wars, Wolf Children) announced on Tuesday that he became the father of his first child on Monday, September 24 at 11:25 p.m.

The baby boy weighed 3.466 kilograms (about 7.64 pounds), and both he and the mother are doing fine.
Hosoda's latest work, Wolf Children, opened in Japan on July 21 after holding its world premiere in Paris in June. The film has since earned more than 4 billion yen (about US$51.4 million) domestically and has been licensed in 43 countries and territories.

The film will also screen at the Hawaii International Film Festival next month.
The film's story covers 13 years and begins with a 19-year-old college student named Hana who encounters and falls in "fairy tale-like" love with a "wolf man." After marrying the wolf man, Hana gives birth and raises two wolf children — an older sister named Yuki ("snow") who was born on a snowy day, and a younger brother named Ame ("rain") who was born on a rainy day.

When the wolf man suddenly dies, Hana decides to move to a rural town far removed from the city.

Responding to a query about the anime Bakuman., Manga Entertainment tweeted, "It's still going to be released in the UK. Kaze UK have said that it will now be a subtitle-only release due to the cancellation of the title in the USA.

Should be more details on this soon."
The anime is based on a manga written by Tsugumi Ohba and drawn by Takeshi Obata — the co-creators of Death Note. The story involves Moritaka Mashiro, a junior high school student, who is persuaded to work towards becoming a manga creator with the encouragement of two classmates.

Viz Media Europe announced that it had acquired the rights to the Bakuman. anime for the U.K. (and several other territories) in March 2012, at which time Kaze said it would be distributing it.

A deal has been struck between stickers specialist Topps Europe and BBC Worldwide to bring out a Doctor Who trading card game next year.

According to a report by Toy News, it will focus on key characters and images since the show returned to our screens in 2005, including those from Series 7.

Topps will also be marking the programme's 50th anniversary by bringing out a line of memorabilia from across those five decades.
This isn't Topps' first foray into the worlds of Doctor Who. The company has previously brought out sticker collections related to the show, with the first one released in 2006.

Louise Ramplin, Topps Europe's entertainment marketing manager, said:
Doctor Who has always been a highly successful licence for us for our sticker collections, so we are very excited to have a brand new Doctor Who trading card game to add to our portfolio.
As well as packets of trading cards, the collection will also include collector tins and starter packs.

Tuesday, 25 September 2012

It has been revealed in the latest episode of Tokumei Sentai Go-Busters that Enter is still alive after his defeat on Red Buster. And now, here are new episode summaries which could suggest the possible return of Messiah.

Mission 32: Tag Team With Gavan! - 09/23
The Go-Busters team decides to work with Gavan and Shelly to defeat the remnant of the Criminal Space Organization Maku, the Rhino Doubler. Meanwhile, the latter already teams up with Enter to defeat our heroes.

Mission 33: N/A - 10/07
An irregular Enetron reading occurs. Hiromu and the team heads to the scene where a phenomenon occurs within highschool grounds. The whole school seems to have disappeared as well. And here, Hiromu was stunned to see a Metaroid.

Mission 34: N/A - 10/14
When Messiah was defeated, he was scattered into 12 card pieces, and the Go-Busters are desperately looking for these. Meanwhile, Enter and a Megazord appeared, and has infiltrated the base.

Final ratings data for the week ending 9th September 2012 released by the Broadcasters’ Audience Research Board or BARB, puts Doctor Who as the ninth most-watched programme of the week on British television.

With 8.42 million viewers, A Town Called Mercy was the second highest rated programme on BBC Television for the week with only series premiere of the dance series Strictly Come Dancing out-rating it. Doctor Who beat every edition of the soap EastEnders.

The situation when ITV1 figures are added is complicated. When the raw figures for each channel are studied then Doctor Who appears to be 7th in the list of top programmes. However ITV1 HD needs to be added into the mix as the figures are calculated separately for the HD version for the independent channel, but added into the reported figures for BBC One.

The BBC also includes ITV+1 when comparing their programmes with the opposition, as watching on ITV+1 is considered the same as recording a programme on the main channel and watching it later.

When these extra figures are added in, Doctor Who come in as the 9th most watched programme of the week, meaning all three episodes of this series have earned top ten places.
The final ratings figure does not include the BBC Three repeat, where around 500,000 watched. Nor do they not include those watching on iPlayer where around 900,000 people accessed the episode in the first four days.

Matt Smith is to appear at the MCM London Comic Con on 26th October 2012, where the actor will be signing and participating in a panel discussion with the show’s executive producer, Caroline Skinner.
The panel, which will also be made available online, forms part of the promotion for the Doctor Who: Series 7 Part 1 DVD, which is released commercially on 29th October.

The DVD will be available to buy at the Doctor Who stand at ExCeL, and the first 100 people to do so will also receive a wristband which will allow them to get it signed by Matt Smith during the actor's session in the Signing Hall at the event.

Tickets for the MCM London Comic Con, which runs over the weekend 26th-28th October in London's ExCeL Centre, are available from their website.

Monday, 24 September 2012

The distributor Arrow Video will release both of the 1970s live-action Lady Snowblood films on DVD/Blu-ray on Monday September 24. Adapted from the manga by Kazuo Koike (Lone Wolf and Cub), the 1973 film Lady Snowblood and its 1974 sequel Lady Snowblood: Love Song of Vengeance feature Meiko Kaji as a swordswoman seeking vengeance for the fate of her mother. The films were a strong influence on Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill.
The Lady Snowblood double-bill will be released in two editions: a DVD/Blu-ray double-pack and a limited edition Blu-ray steelbook (pictured). Both editions include a booklet on the films by Tom Mes, and an interview with Japanese cinema expert Jasper Sharp, while the films have been remastered with new subtitles.
Also on Monday, Manga Entertainment is releasing the second season of Strike Witches. It continues the story of scantily-clad flying girl witches, fighting alien invaders in the 1940s. (Manga promoted the original series with the tag, "War is pants!") Whereas the first series was rated '12' by the BBFC, the second series has been rated '15' for "sexualised nudity."
Manga is also releasing the first box-set of Clannad After Story, the sequel to the original Clannad series. The story continues to follow the fortunes of young man Tomoya and the people in his life.

A Town Called Mercyhad a final consolidated rating of8.42 millionviewers.The final figure includes all those who recorded the programme and watched it within 7 days of transmission. It is a large increase on the initially estimated figure and gives the show a33.4% shareof the total TV Audience. It is the highest rating of the series so far, and the first time since the series returned that the third episode has outrated the series opener. It is the Best performing 3rd episode of a season since the 2005 storyThe Unquiet Dead.The figure does not include those watching on iPlayer.A full report of the week, giving Doctor Who's place in the top ten, should be issued byBARBtomorrow.

A Town Called Mercy has averaged 556,000 viewers in the five major Australian capital cities. Up against the football finals, it was the top-ratingABCdrama of the day and the ninth highest rating programme of the day overall.

Voting has now opened for the eighteenthNational Television Awards, and as per the normDoctor Whoand its stars have been nominated for awards.The show itself has been nominated for theDramacategory, but is up against a formidable number of shows this year, with some 35 to choose from. The list includes the otherSteven MoffatsuccessSherlock, BBC medical stalwartsCasualtyandHolby City,Merlin, and last Christmas's showpiece dramaGreat Expectations. ITV1's contributions includeLewis,Whitechapel,Law & Order UKand last year's winnerDownton Abbey.Matt Smithis up forDrama Performance: Male; there are 29 nominations in this category, which include Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman (Sherlock), Kevin Whately (Lewis) and Sir Kenneth Branagh (Wallander). OtherWho-related nominees includeMarc Warren(Without You),Colin Morgan(Merlin),Hugh Bonneville(Downton Abbey),Daniel Mays(Mrs Biggs), andMartin Clunes(A Mother's Son).Karen Gillanhas slightly less to contend with for theDrama Performance: Female, with "just" 25 nominees, including Gillian Anderson (Great Expectations), Claire Danes (Homeland) and Emilia Fox (Silent Witness). OtherWho-related names includeLesley SharpandSuranne Jones(Scott and Bailey), andSunetra Sarker(Casualty).Who-related actors in other categories includeNina Wadia(Eastenders) inSerial Drama Performance, andAlexander Armstrong,Reggie YatesandBradley WalshasEntertainment Presenter.Voting for the awards is made by the public, and takes place until Thursday 11th October. Up to four nominees from each of the categories with the most votes will then go forward to be included in the shortlist voting round (date to be announced). The ceremony itself will take place live from the O2 on ITV1 on23rd January 2013.